Commercial warewashers commonly include a housing area which defines washing and rinsing zones for dishes, pots pans and other wares. In conveyor-type machines wares are moved through multiple different spray zones within the housing for cleaning (e.g., pre-wash, wash, post-wash (aka power rinse) and rinse zones). One or more of the zones include a tank in which liquid to be sprayed on wares is heated in order to achieve desired cleaning. Maintaining the water at the desired temperature is important for machine operation. Due to water movement within the tank, the temperature within the tank can be maintained relatively uniform when a spray recirculation pump is operating for spraying wares within the zone. However, when the machine is idling and/or the pump is not otherwise being used for spraying, the lack of water movement results in uneven water heating.
Current warewash machines, especially flight type machines, use the major spray recirculation pumps to periodically stir and evenly distributes the heat in the tank(s) as well as warm the chamber(s)/zone(s) to position machine ready for a wash without dropping machine temperature to unacceptable levels. This approach results in substantial energy loss from the use of high numbers of high wattage pump(s) which generate steam to warm the chamber(s). This leads to energy loss through the exhaust as well as to the chamber/zone by cooling down quickly.
It would be desirable to provide a warewasher idling system and method that reduces energy consumption while effectively maintaining desired water temperatures in the machine tanks.